Got Going?

Has N. Guinea Tourism Got Going?

By a Special Writer

Has American travel man James Walton really done some thing to at last get the Papua- New Guinea tourist industry on its way as a going concern?

WE might know something soon.

Mr. Walton has just breezed through Port Moresby in his usual style on his third trip to the Terri tory.

He has announced that; (a) He has finally arranged for the erection of a 40-room, air-conditioned, £lOO,OOO hotel with swimming pool. (b) He is about to launch a big advertising campaign to attract Ameri can tourists to the Territory.

Mr. Walton is now back in the States, after establishing a Sydney branch of his tourist agency.

He says the Sydney agency will offer tourists one-week package tours of P-NG, taking in Port Moresby, Lae, Wau and Bulolo.

This tour, says Mr. Walton, is aimed at middle-class Americans, and his agency could handle 3,000 tourists in the first year, Mr. Walton told PIM in Sydney the new hotel would be built on Port Moresby’s Three Mile Hill, which has a view of the Coral Sea. (Over)

The site would be an existing house formerly used by the firm of Hastings Deering. The house would be recon structed.

Most of the money, said Mr. Wal ton, would be provided by Mr. Ken Bourke, managing director of Port Moresby’s Pacific Taxi Service, which operates several cab fleets, a bus service and drive-yourself cars. Mr.

Walton would put up remainder of the money, he said.

Mr. Walton was unable to say when work would commence on the hotel.

However, Hastings Deering’s Sydney office told PIM that a local man connected with Mr. Bourke had had an option on the premises, which were still owned by Hastings Deering, but the option had expired in July.

The house was at present leased to a local man for his personal use, but it was still for sale.

Hastings Deering was surprised at the news that Mr. Walton thought it possible to build a hotel on the site.

In view of that it will be interesting to hear just when the hotel project can get started.

Rabaul Hotel In Port Moresby Mr. Walton has also been quoted as saying that he would have talks with the big Islands firm of Nelson and Robertson, “who were considering building a modern hotel in Rabaul”.

But this, apparently, is news to everybody including Nelson and Robertson’s Sydney office.

Nelson and Robertson had interests in the old Rabaul Hotel before the war but they have no hotel interests there now.

Apparently all that has happened is that they suggested to Mr. Walton sometime ago that instead of looking for a site for a hotel in Port Moresby, he might like to look around Rabaul, which was “prettier, had tourist po tential, a fine harbour, volcanoes and natural tropical backdrop”.

The company has not denied Mr.

Walton’s statement, but one gathers that this is out of courtesy to Mr.

Walton in case he comes iip with some proposition they don’t know about.

Mr. Walton said in Sydney he had already started on his publicity drive on behalf of New Guinea (whether he regards his Port Moresby and Rabaul hotel statements as part of the publicity drive, we don’t know) by taking several pages in the 1961 Hotel and Travel Index, a world wide tourist publication, to tell about New Guinea.

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He describes New Guinea in print as “the New Travel Frontier”.

Mr. Walton added that up till now the Territory’s travel industry has been run “along amateur lines”.

Another American travel man in terested in P-NG is Mr. Bert Hemp hill, who has arranged a package tour of the Territory this year.

Meanwhile, the Territory’s own tourist organisation, the P-NG Tourist and Travel Association, seems to be on the move.

When the Orsova made a brief visit with 2,000 tourists on July 1, the Association was on the job at Port Moresby wharf, handing out informa tion on local trips (and also on the types of employment available!).

A fleet of private cars, taxis and minibuses took people on sightseeing tours and two Patair Piaggios showed some 50 or 60 visitors what Port Moresby looks like from the air.

Palm leaves decorated the door ways of shops and hotels. There were grass-skirted, flower-decked girls to be photographed (for a fee) and

plenty of organised dancing and enter tainment.

Mr. Noel Maloney, President of the P-NG Tourist and Travel Association, says he wants more Australians to come to the Territory.

Although travellers and tourists spent about £i million in P-NG in 1959-60 they represented only a very small percentage of Australian tourists who could come to New Guinea.

A “Spend Your Next Holiday in Papua-New Guinea” campaign con ducted on the mainland should have valuable results, said Mr. Maloney in July.

He deplored the fact that in the glossy publication Pacific Travel News, produced by the Pacific Travel Association, every country in the South West Pacific was mentioned except Papua-New Guinea.

“We have now applied for member ship of the Pacific Travel Asso ciation,” he said.

The Association also has other promotional plans.